Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye
by padfoot's prose
Summary: ...And One Time He Did. Once upon a time, Kurt promised Blaine that he'd never say goodbye to him. This is the story of how and why he finally breaks that promise. WARNING: tearjerker, character death and possible triggers for depression.
1. Prologue

_For lillibug618  
><em>_Who was the 200__th__ reviewer for You Had Me At 'Sesame Street'  
>And who wanted a Klaine story with a reference to Kurt never saying goodbye to Blaine<em>

* * *

><p><strong><em><span>Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye<span>_**

_**... And One Time He Did**_

* * *

><p><em>-prologue-<em>

_2011_

_..._

The courtyard was empty. Which was strange, really, because objectively speaking Kurt knew that it wasn't. He knew that Finn was there, because somehow he'd ended up in his arms, surrounded by his smell, a smell that screamed _home_ so loud and clear that it made Kurt sway, made him grateful that it was his brother holding him up.

And other people were there as well. Mercedes and the rest of the New Directions. The Warblers too, or at least those who had been able to get out of class. Blaine, of course.

_Of course_.

Blaine, singing beautiful, sweet nothings so intimately and so dearly it was as if he too had been transported to this parallel universe where there was no one watching them. A universe without Karofskys and Azimios and people who hated so cruelly – so surely – despite not really knowing what it was that they adamantly opposed. A universe where one boy could look at another like _that, _like his entire existence was balancing on his shoulders.

As Blaine hesitated, only for a moment, breathing out one last note, Kurt felt like Atlas. He felt like this entire fragile world was crushing him from above, and if he made one wrong move it would shatter and be gone. But then Blaine was in his arms – or he was in Blaine's, it was impossible to tell which – and somehow the weight lifted. Suddenly, it wasn't just Kurt holding it all at bay, trying to make it on his own. It was _them._

Kurt had never been part of a 'them' before.

So he gripped Blaine tightly, wanting to somehow impress his body upon him, become a part of him permanently, inalterably. Change him so immensely that no distance between them could make him forget who Kurt was to him and who he was to Kurt.

But that was impossible, so instead Kurt closed his eyes tight for a moment and then opened them and whispered, "I'm never saying goodbye to you."

It was a promise, one almost as scary as_ I love you, _which neither of them was quite ready to say yet. Because, even if this wasn't the same sort of declaration, this was a promise of forever, of eternity, of an infinitely long future spent together.

Blaine didn't reply, but his silence spoke volumes, and as the real world came slowly back into existence, Kurt felt the weight disappear from his shoulders altogether. This wasn't a parallel universe anymore, it wasn't a fantasy: something too perfect, too unreal, like Dalton had been. It was reality. He didn't need Blaine's help to maintain the illusion of safety. He just needed Blaine to look at him like he was now, with a tender gaze that was enough of a reply.

With eyes that silently said _yes, yes, yes_ to Kurt's promise of forever.

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><p><strong>More coming soon!<strong>

**Also, please do me a favour and read the A/N I wrote for this on my tumblr, which there is a link to on my profile page. I know it's a pain to have to click over to a new page, but this story is going to get very serious, very quickly, and I would really appreciate it if you could spare a moment to see why my head produced this the way it is.**

**Thanks, padfoot**


	2. The First Time Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye

**_Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye_**

_**... And One Time He Did**_

* * *

><p>-1-<p>

_Summer 2012_

_..._

"I have to go," Kurt murmured against Blaine's lips, smiling when he felt his boyfriend's arms tighten around him.

"Mmhmm."

Blaine pressed another kiss to Kurt's mouth before moving down to kiss his chin, his neck, along the line of his collarbone where the two undone buttons of his shirt revealed a slice of smooth, soft skin. Kurt swallowed noisily at the feel of Blaine's rough cheek rubbing against him and lifted a hand to stroke through his hair, gripping the clumps still held together with gel from last night's date.

It was a rare treat that Blaine had been allowed to stay overnight, even if Burt had feigned ignorance of the whole situation, keeping his thoughts to himself as he'd wished Kurt a stiff "Goodnight," only glancing away from the TV for a second.

Obviously, with a house full of people very much in the know, Kurt and Blaine hadn't really planned on doing anything, and Kurt had been glad simply for the opportunity to curl up with Blaine under the covers one last time. However, their plans (or lack thereof) had fallen apart as they'd spent the night sharing warmth, trading the heat of their last Ohio summer back and forth with messy kisses and breathy chuckles, until they'd given up on all pretence and thrown back the sheets, Kurt rolling up to hover above Blaine as their shirts were stripped off too. Everything had built up, accumulating in stifled moans and whispers that weren't nearly enough to abate the pressure until it all erupted in a chaotic rush, as the couple tried to do and say everything before it was too late.

Blaine had whispered, "I love you, I love you, I love you," against Kurt's throat and his chest and his stomach, eliciting strangled noises and swallowing them down, drinking them in like icy lemonade under a scorching sun, like he couldn't ever get enough of them. And Kurt had given all that he could in return, his words growing more and more uncensored – dirtier and rawer and truer – as Blaine kept pulling him closer and tangling them up in each other, making them one complex creature of bent arms and aching legs and arching spines.

At least, until Finn had hammered on the wall that separated his bedroom from Kurt's, yelling, "Okay, I need you two to stop right now or I'll seriously _puke_." That had put an effective stop to Kurt and Blaine's prolonged farewell, making them both dissolve into giggles, vibrating against each other and savouring it, slowing right down until it was not so much sensuous as it was lazy, sleepy; the perfect lullaby to play as they drifted off to sleep.

And then they'd both awoken, and Kurt had watched Blaine doze for a while, wondering how long it would be before he could do this again. New York was his dream, absolutely – there was still no question in his mind about that – but Blaine... Blaine was a dream too. One that Kurt hadn't realised how much he'd wanted until he'd gotten it and _wow_. Yes. Blaine was certainly a dream come true.

Still: New York. New York, New York, _New York_. The one thing that Kurt had always wanted, the thing he'd been working towards for as long as he could remember. And now he was _so close_ to getting it that it almost hurt. He'd kept that in mind as he'd dressed and done his hair and eaten his breakfast and tried his hardest not to think of what he was leaving behind. It had worked too – focussing on Broadway and musicals and performing for the rest of his life – at least until they'd gone back to his room and Blaine had gotten his arms around Kurt's waist and tugged him back over to the bed, laughing at how easily his boyfriend's resolve was shattered.

Kurt was embarrassed, to be honest, about how weak he was as he tried to fight against this. All he had to do was pull away from Blaine – from the addictive feel of his lips and tongue and fingers stroking over skin, too hot, too _much_ to handle, but so, so _right_ – and yet right now stopping seemed utterly impossible.

"I have to go," he said again, this time with even less conviction.

"Then go," Blaine dared him, his breath stuttering as he laughed, mouth now tickling Kurt's shoulder as his hand tugged the collar of his shirt further open.

"No, Blaine, I _really_ have to go. I'll miss my flight."

"And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

Blaine was grinning as he pulled back a little, staring at down at Kurt for a second before diving in again, kissing him so hard and intense and _real_ that it made both of them gasp and struggle to somehow be closer.

Kurt could feel that this kiss really was goodbye. As much as Blaine loved to joke and pretend to detain him, Kurt though he sensed that soon he would have to let go. After all, Blaine knew what this meant to Kurt, knew how important it was for him to make this trip now and make it on his own. But that didn't stop them both from wanting to hold on for just a little bit longer, kiss just a little harder, try to stay here for just one more moment, even if they knew it wasn't what either of them really wanted.

Too soon – always, always _too soon_ – Blaine pulled back, and his eyes were glassy as he stared down at his boyfriend. Kurt wondered what emotions were hidden behind that gaze, wondered what words Blaine was fighting with everything he had to hold at bay.

But Blaine stayed silent and Kurt was grateful for it, able to feel the tears prickling in his own eyes as he rolled off the bed, sighing deeply before he stood to straighten his collar, re-button his shirt and give himself an appraising look in the mirror. His hair was not exactly perfect. And his shirt was creased. And his pants were, well, tighter than they probably should've been. Yet, far from trying to fix the air of slight dishevelment that Kurt knew he exuded, he smiled a little at his own reflection. He wouldn't have a chance to look like this again for another year. There was no way he was going to hide it away today.

Turning around to face his boyfriend, still splayed on the bed, Kurt tried one more time to commit Blaine to his memory. He was lying on his stomach, having collapsed there once Kurt had wriggled away, and nothing about him seemed an iota less than perfect. All the way from his patchy head of hair – still gelled in places and beginning to curl in others – to his bare feet, Blaine was unbelievably beautiful. So much that it made Kurt ache to think that he wouldn't get to be right here ever again.

"I love you," Kurt told Blaine's back, watching as the words made his shoulders shift and the tension drain out.

"I love you too," Blaine said into Kurt's pillow, the words muffled but sure. "So, _so_ much."

Kurt bit his lip, glancing at the clock on the wall. He really had to go.

"Do I get to see your face again before I leave?" he asked, forcing himself to take step closer to his bedroom door, away from the bed.

Blaine laughed into the pillow, but the sound was off and accompanied by a strange sort of jerk in his body that he was clearly trying to suppress. With a start, Kurt realised that his boyfriend was crying, and the reason he wouldn't turn over was that he didn't want Kurt to see it.

"Well, I guess I have photos to look at," Kurt teased, aiming for light-hearted but falling short as Blaine's shoulders shook again. "And we're scheduled for a Skype date tomorrow night – no excuses, okay?"

"Okay," Blaine replied.

They were both silent, and Kurt heard the sound of the car starting downstairs – a signal from his Dad that it was time to leave.

"Well. I'm going now."

"Goodbye," Blaine murmured.

"I'll see you soon," Kurt promised in return.

And then Blaine sobbed again and it just wasn't fair that some stupid law of the universe dictated that Kurt couldn't move any closer, because damn it his boyfriend was _hurting_ and it was _his fault_ and if he didn't have the right to comfort him then-

Unexpectedly, Blaine turned his head to look over at Kurt, face stained with tears but eyes sparkling with what could almost have been laughter.

"Right," he said, lips curving into a reluctant half-smile, "I forgot that you promised never to say goodbye to me."

"Never," Kurt assured him, and maybe the word was another promise or maybe it was something more like a vow, but whatever it was, it was so intensely _true_ that it almost scared Kurt, knowing that that type of honesty and certainty about his future was possible when his life was only just beginning.

But, he supposed, _this_ wasn't going to change. Not at all. How he felt about Blaine, what he wanted them to be – that was never going to be any different. Not in a year, and not in fifty. What felt like a millennium ago, in a packed high school courtyard that had felt empty at the time, Kurt had sworn to be with Blaine indefinitely, infinitely. Now, he meant it more than ever.

"We'll be fine," he said aloud. "Nothing's going to change."

Blaine smiled back at him, looking sadder and more wrecked and more incredible than ever before.

"I know," he nodded.

The car horn beeped loudly in the driveway, and Kurt heard yells from Finn and Carole, who were waiting outside. He heaved a sigh and touched a nervous hand to his hair, then to his pocket, where the small wrapped package that Blaine had given him was pressing against his hip. Kurt let his eyes wander over his room one last time, and then settled his gaze back on the gorgeous boy still staring up at him from his bed.

"Goodbye, Kurt," Blaine said again.

"I love you," Kurt replied.

And he turned around and left, abandoning Blaine to mourn the departure in Kurt's old bedroom, letting his own tears begin to fall the moment he was out of sight. In the driveway, Finn and Carole hugged Kurt before he got into the car with his Dad, who wordlessly handed him a box of tissues. The gesture reminded him too much of too many other moments like this – of leaving McKinley and leaving Dalton and the leaving leaving McKinley again, of Junior Prom, and of fights that had been so scary at the time but now felt like nothing but tiny blips, barely marring his and Blaine's perfect year – and he shook his head, curling his fingers over his pocket once more. Burt touched a comforting palm to his son's shoulder before reversing onto the street, both sparing a look back at the house as they drove away.

"You all right, kiddo?" Burt eventually asked, when the tears had subsided somewhat.

"I'll be fine."

"Sure you don't want a tissue?"

Kurt shook his head, "No, thanks. They-"

He broke off, pressing on his pocket once more. Burt glanced over as Kurt pulled out Blaine's present with its plain gold wrapping paper and a tiny white ribbon. Ignoring his father's stare, Kurt flipped over the package and carefully unwrapped it, tucking the ribbon and paper back into his pocket as they fell away to reveal a packet of tissues. Unable to hold in a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh, Kurt opened it pulled out a tissue to press to his face, dabbing away the lingering tears.

"I think something fell out," Burt said suddenly, nodding at Kurt's lap as they pulled up at a set of traffic lights.

Kurt picked up the piece of paper that had been tucked inside the tissue packet, unfolding it and smiling at Blaine's messy writing.

_Since I won't be there to wipe away your tears, here's hoping that these will do the job. (And I guess you could use them to wipe away other stuff that I usually help clean up too, if you get my drift...)  
>Love, Blaine<em>

Silently, Kurt refolded the note, pressing it hard into his palm for a moment before also stowing it in his pocket.

"I'll be fine," he repeated, looking back over at his Dad.

This time, they both believed it.


	3. The Second Time Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye

**_Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye_**

_**... And One Time He Did**_

* * *

><p>-2-<p>

_Summer 2013_

...

"Where are you?" Kurt asked Blaine's face as it bobbed in and out of sight on the screen of his iPhone.

"Almost there!" Blaine answered eagerly, lurching suddenly to one side as his cab turned a corner sharply.

Kurt giggled when his boyfriend went tumbling out of sight, presumably as Blaine dropped his phone, and for a long moment Kurt examined the material of the taxi's seat cover with a wide grin.

He was sitting on his bed in his dorm room, one hand clutching a comb which he was attempting to run through his hair while the other hand gripped his phone, keeping it balanced precariously on his knee. It was all being done in a last ditch effort to be ready for Blaine's arrival, which had snuck up on Kurt in a way strikingly reminiscent of Christmas and Halloween and Fourth of July all rolled into one.

The sound of the door opening made Kurt glance up from the thoroughly fascinating view of what appeared to be dandruff imbedded in the cab's backseat, nodding as his roommate raised a hand in greeting.

"Blaine?" the roommate enquired in a low voice, gesturing to the phone.

Kurt made a noise of assent, biting his lip to keep himself from laughing out loud again when Blaine's face finally came back into sight.

It can't have helped that Kurt hadn't seen his boyfriend in months, but he was sure that, even if he'd seen Blaine yesterday, everything he was feeling now would still be just as potent. It felt as if this moment was a million years in the making, and it was pathetically true that he had sort of been longing for it almost all year long. That, combined with the anticipation for the three days they'd booked in an upmarket hotel near Central Park, the joy at Blaine having gotten into NYADA, the overwhelming sense of _rightness_ that had settled in the moment he had discovered that they'd be together in New York, was honestly to blame for getting him into this state. A state where even the mere presence of Blaine now – the knowledge that he was only minutes away from being close enough to _touch_ – was almost too much for Kurt to bear.

Plus, seeing that Blaine was practically jumping out of his seat, completely unable to contain his own excitement, certainly didn't help Kurt's case. Mostly, it seemed to reinforce what a year at college had taught him: that he officially had the most adorable boyfriend in all of America. And that a whole year was far, far too long to have spent apart from him.

"I'm almost there!" Blaine said again, loud enough to echo through the admittedly tiny dorm room, making Kurt's roommate roll his eyes and fake a dreamy smile as he pretended to faint in delight. "I can't believe I'm so close! I'm coming, Kurt, I'm coming!"

Midway through his dramatic performance of collapsing onto his bed, Kurt's roommate paused to fix Kurt with a strange look. Catching sight of it only in his peripheral vision, Kurt shooed it away, but then realised a moment later what this all sound might like to an outside observer.

"Oh, God- _no,_ Brendan! He doesn't mean it like that-"

But Brendan the roommate was shaking his head hard, eyes wide and expression one of sincerest apology.

"I'm so sorry!" he whispered, knocking over Kurt's half-packed suitcase in his haste to leave the room. "I'll just leave you two alone while you- uh..."

By the time Brendan had made his hurried departure, Kurt was bent forwards on his bed, sobbing into his sheets in hysterical laughter, literally unable to contain all the bloody _feelings_ coursing through him.

"Are you okay?" Blaine asked – breaking off his from his enthusiastic gushing about _how excited I am to finally be in New York City!_ – when he noticed his boyfriend's state. "Kurt? Kurt, are you crying?"

Kurt just squeaked out a "No!" in reply, inhaling deeply and making a concerted effort to compose himself before he sat up, looking back at his phone. Of course, the moment he caught sight of Blaine again – expression worried, eyes wild because he hadn't had a proper sleep in days, hair untamed because... well, quite frankly, the gel would just get in the way – he couldn't stop another round of happy, happy, _happy_ tears springing forth. The reaction from Blaine was a frown so incredibly bewildered that it was all Kurt could do not to curl up and cry himself to into a coma.

And, okay, so maybe Kurt hadn't really been getting much sleep lately either. And the four coffees he'd had so far that morning probably didn't help. And torturing himself by re-watching all the videos Blaine had sent of the New Directions' performances over the past year was really, actually, probably the clincher, because Kurt knew full well that all they ever did was remind him that his boyfriend had an incredible set of hips and really ought to put them to good use.

"I'm okay," Kurt finally choked out, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "Just excited to see you."

"_Soon_," Blaine promised.

It was all Kurt could do not to dissolve into tears again in response.

But that would really have been a waste, because it was barely three minutes later that there was a cautious knock on his door, and Kurt almost tripped on his own upturned suitcase in his haste to answer it. Then he was in Blaine's arms and their lips were hurriedly searching out one another's while trying to re-memorise every available inch of skin.

It was only when the two of them fell to the floor, really truly falling over Kurt's suitcase this time, that words suddenly spilled forth, "I love you"s and "I missed you"s and "you're amazing"s, all one after another and tumbling off tongues and over cheeks and necks and shoulders. Eager and desperate and adoring all combined to create the bordering-on-hysterical way the two touched each other – kissing and stroking and gripping so tight it would definitely leave a mark.

When they finally broke apart – still fully clothed, as per Kurt's promise to Brendan – but distinctly worse for wear, the two exchanged slightly guilty looks before pulling themselves upright. Kurt and Blaine appraised each other, taking in changed fashion styles, longer hair and larger, stronger, more mature features, and then their gazes settled into the comfortable eye contact that they'd been trading for years: nervous and flirty and loving all at once.

"Hello," Kurt said.

"Hi," Blaine replied, "Nice place you've got here."

And that was how it began.

"What do you mean you don't want to live together next year?"

Blaine's expression was more confused than angry, his eyes narrow and brow furrowed, as if he couldn't comprehend the words that had come out of Kurt's mouth, prompting his sudden exclamation.

The two sat opposite each other at a sticky table in a busy Starbucks, having abandoned Kurt's dorm room soon after Blaine's arrival. They had agreed that Kurt's promise to Brendan would definitely not be kept if they stayed in such close vicinity of a bed for an extended period of time. Besides, they were finally reunited. For good. They'd have forever to be alone together, but only one chance for their first coffee date in New York City.

Kurt surveyed his boyfriend's face before answering, nervous that, after so long apart, he wouldn't be able to read Blaine like he could before.

"I just mean- well, I promised Brendan I'd room with him again next year, because they're moving us out of the freshman dorms and into another building. It's new, Blaine – it has better facilities and no shared bathrooms and heaps more space to study. Plus, this other building is _designed_ for the theatre majors: sound proofing and rehearsal spaces and desks that are actually big enough to put 3D set-designs on."

Already Blaine was shaking his head, one hand fiddling with the lid of his cup, as he tended to do when he was distracted or stressed.

"But we had a plan, Kurt, remember? We decided we'd be in the same dorm room next year, treat it like a trial run before we moved in together for real."

"And we can still _do_ that," Kurt insisted, his foot tapping compulsively under the table. He shoved away his coffee, beginning to regret those previous four cups. "Rachel is looking for a flat for the three of us as we speak. Now that she has her role on the soap opera, she actually has enough of an income to keep up with rent, and she's hoping to find the right place for us before Christmas. It's just going to take _time_, Blaine. Just another few months, a year at the most, and then we _will_ move in together and live together properly. I promise."

"You promised we'd be roommates this semester," Blaine muttered, but he muffled it by taking another sip of coffee, and Kurt chose to roll his eyes and ignore his boyfriend's bitterness.

It was understandable that Blaine was disappointed, but it wasn't exactly like the plan for them to room together had been set in stone. It was the sort of plan that had been mentioned casually over Skype a couple of times, something that Blaine had just assumed was going to happen, even as Kurt made a concerted effort not to commit to anything. Besides, he had a good thing going with Brendan – they were both so similar that it just _made sense_ for them to room together!

Brendan was gay too, from a big family in the north-west who couldn't care less if the youngest of sixteen cousins was as camp as a row of tents. He shared Kurt's appreciation for high-end fashion and finding the perfect accessories, and was, to be completely honest, equalled only by Brittany in his ability to spot a new trend. In fact, he and Kurt had gotten along so well at the beginning of the year that Blaine had initially been jealous, but it took only one conversation with the tall, blonde, flamboyant boy for Blaine to quickly establish that he had nothing to worry about. Brendan was _similar _to Kurt, but he wasn't the type of guy Kurt would likely be attracted to.

"Look, Blaine, I don't want to argue about this anymore. Can't we just enjoy being together for a while? If I recall correctly, my father has treated us to three days in a very fancy hotel, and it would be a crime not to spend as much time as possible getting reacquainted there."

"'Getting reacquainted' - is that what you call it now?" Blaine asked, eyebrows raised

"Only amongst friends," Kurt replied, examining his and Blaine's hands, intertwined on the tabletop. He peered up through his eyelashes to fix his boyfriend with a look of faux-sternness, "To the public I just call it sex. Much less vulgar."

"Of course," Blaine chuckled. "You wouldn't want to frighten anyone with your crass, uncivilised, country-boy slang."

"Precisely."

Underneath the table, Kurt's leg had wound around Blaine's ankle and was slowly tugging him in. Both boys took silent sips of their drinks, grins widening as they came to be pressed knee-to-knee. Kurt squeezed his boyfriend's hand, slipping the toe of his shoe under the hem of Blaine's jeans, and God it was stupid that this felt so damn intimate, because they were barely even touching, but they had gone so, so long without anything at all that suddenly the concept of touching Blaine beneath his clothes at all was thrilling.

"We should go," Kurt whispered at the table, feeling his cheeks heat up as he realised he was basically propositioning his boyfriend.

"Yeah. Right now," Blaine agreed, and too quickly they were both standing up leaving the crowded coffee shop, walking swiftly back to Kurt's building where they'd left their bags.

Later, Kurt rolled over where he lay, laughing as the move put Blaine off-balance, almost sending him falling to the floor. Still giggling, the two arranged themselves again so they could fit in the single bed, eventually settling with Kurt draped over Blaine's chest, ignoring the stickiness and sweat as he nuzzled into his neck.

"Will your roommate still want to stay with you next year when he finds out you broke his rule?" Blaine mumbled into Kurt's hair, not shifting away as he continued pressing soft, drowsy kisses there.

Kurt grinned guiltily, deciding that surely Brendan would've realised that there was no way he was going to keep his promise. After all, Brendan had seen pictures of Blaine, he'd heard him talking on the phone – it would be plain idiotic of him to genuinely think that Kurt could've resisted his boyfriend for long enough to make it to the hotel room.

"Honestly, I think Brendan would've seen this coming. He knows how completely irresistible you are."

Blaine chuckled, and the stutter of his breath made Kurt's scalp tingle.

"Completely irresistible, huh?" he breathed, moving to mouth at the shell of Kurt's ear. "I always knew I liked Brendan."

"My words, not his," Kurt pointed out.

"Sure, sure..."

They fell into a comfortable silence, the sounds of a busy New York summer echoing noisily in through the open window above the bed. To Kurt, the noise of traffic and sirens had been a permanent backdrop to his life for so long that usually he barely noticed them, but today, as Blaine's lips trailed down his neck then absently back up again, it all seemed louder than usual. He couldn't help craving the peacefulness of Ohio, the true silence that would set in late at night or early in the morning when he'd fall asleep or wake up with Blaine by his side.

A sigh escaped from him as Kurt let his mind drift to the heavenly promises of his and Brendan's new dorm. More workspace, studios to rehearse in, sound-proofing. _Sound-proofing_. It was no secret that that was what drew most of the students who'd applied to the building. And not because it was the sound of singing, instrument practice or traffic that echoed through the hallways late at night in other dorms.

"You could still visit me next year," Kurt murmured, turning his head to press his mouth against Blaine's shoulder. "Maybe I could renegotiate my rules with Brendan. Get us some scheduled alone time behind my sound-proofed walls."

"I guess I could live with that," Blaine conceded, although his tone was one of just having agreed to a weighty compromise. "And you could always visit me in my room. Unless my roommate is just so awesome that I don't want you around to cramp my style."

"If you tell me I'm not allowed in your room, I promise your cramped style won't be your biggest problem. Besides, odds are your roommate will be a homophobic pot-addict. Most of them are."

Blaine groaned.

"Please don't say that. I am actually terrified that he's going to be _exactly_ like that."

Kissing Blaine's shoulder again, Kurt rolled himself over so he was lying, chest-to-chest, fully on top of Blaine. He dragged himself up so he could look Blaine in the eye, grinning at the wonderful friction the movement caused.

"I can't promise your roommate won't be an idiot," Kurt admitted. "But I can promise that, if he is, you can spend all the time you want in me and Brendan's room. You're not getting rid of me that easily, Blaine Warbler."

"Ex-Warbler," Blaine reminded him, leaning up to capture Kurt's lips in a brief, gentle kiss. "We should go. We have a hotel room waiting for us, right?"

Kurt hummed a non-committal reply, making no effort to move as his boyfriend began to try and sit up. The action was hampered by the way Kurt was still draped over him but, with a few grunts of exertion, Blaine managed to get himself upright. Kurt continued to try his best to prevent Blaine from moving, shifting to straddle his lap when his sounds of protest were unheeded.

Blaine stared at Kurt with an expression of faux-disapproval, and said in an exasperated voice, "You want to get re-acquainted _again_? I didn't think there was much more to get acquainted with."

Kurt laughed in reply, snaking his arms around Blaine's neck and tugging him closer.

"If I have my way, we're going to spend a lot of time getting re-acquainted over the next year," he whispered across Blaine's lips.

Both of them grinned at his daring, and Kurt could tell that Blaine was wondering where this confidence had come from. Kurt thought it best not mention that Brendan had introduced him to the joys of erotic novels, which were somehow much less uncomfortable to engage in than actual porn.

"Remind me again why we're not living together?" Blaine asked as he skimmed his fingertips up Kurt's side.

"Because I'd never get any work done if we did."

Kurt swallowed Blaine's chuckle, kissing his lips hard before pulling back to add, "And because, this way, we get to say a prolonged goodbye. Every. Single. Night."

The end of the sentence was accompanied by more kisses – close and intense and hot as Kurt let his fingers dig into Blaine's back.

"I thought you were never saying goodbye to me?" Blaine challenged, lifting his other hand to hold Kurt's cheek as he leant in closer, pushing their mouths together with an urgent insistence that shot a tingle of desire through Kurt's body.

"Oh, I don't plan on _saying_ goodbye," Kurt assured him. "Just... communicating it. Regularly."

"Something to look forward to," Blaine muttered.

"Exactly."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Um... so this is awkward. I realised that I needed to attach a few warnings to this story. I didn't want to initially because they kind of give away a lot of what's about to happen, but I cannot morally allow myself to continue without them because, to be frank, in the next chapter shit gets real.**

**So, WARNING! character death and hints (really, really subtle, I-couldn't-even-find-them-when-I-went-looking-for-them-but-have-a-vague-recollection-of-writing-them) of depression.**

**These will be added to the summary once this story is complete.**


	4. The Third Time Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye

**_Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye_**

_**... And One Time He Did**_

* * *

><p>-3-<p>

_Winter 2014_

...

Kurt had never expected it to sneak up.

The happiness – although he'd anticipated the way _that_ would sneak up on them – had started with the strange realisation that, at the end of any given day spent with Blaine, Kurt's cheeks were sore from smiling too wide, too often. Then the comments from his Dad and Carole began coming in thick and fast every time they called, and even worse was that one time they came to visit and Burt was forced to concede that Kurt and Blaine "could barely manage five minutes with your hands to yourselves". The fantastic days were often just too many to count, and as bad as he felt about it, after a while Kurt stopped trying to remember them all. Some stood out in his mind, though: the day Rachel had finally found her apartment, and another one a week later when Blaine had abandoned his homophobic, crack-addict of a roommate (well, Kurt was partly right, at least) and taken Rachel's spare room.

And life had been good. Better than good, really. It had been great.

Refusing to break his one remaining promise to Brendan, and still sort of keen to take advantage of sound-proof walls, Kurt had stayed in his new room until the next summer. On his last night there, he, Blaine, Brendan, Rachel and Rachel's on-again-off-again boyfriend (who also happened to be her co-star on the soap opera) celebrated a year spent together, had far too much to drink and ended up laughing themselves to sleep at stories of Brendan's latest failed attempt at seducing the hot new history professor. The next morning, Blaine had picked up Kurt's old (but certainly not battered, except for the few scrapes it'd received that one time when it had just been constantly _in the way_) suitcase and they'd ridden a taxi to their and Rachel's apartment. Once there, they'd promptly taken her key, hidden it in a drawer, and ordered her to disappear for the rest of the day. When she'd threatened to stay right where she was until they _returned her stolen property_, Kurt had kissed Blaine hard and begun unbuttoning his jeans then and there. Rachel had cleared off for the rest of the day.

So, happiness, at least, was something that Kurt had noticed. Something he had bundled up and basked in whenever he felt it buzzing through his body, because he knew how easy it was to take it for granted and swore he never would.

But six months of sharing a house with Rachel, sharing a bedroom with Blaine, living a life that he'd never even let himself dream would be real, made Kurt forget that other things can sneak up too. Things like complacency – the word sounding so silly every time every time it shrieked like a siren in his head – and trusting someone more than they deserved. Things like faith and loyalty and _fidelity_.

All three of them had gone back to Lima, Ohio for Christmas, and for a while Kurt hadn't noticed that something had changed. He and Blaine were still crazy about each other – that was plain for anyone to see. They still poked fun at one another and stole into seclusion together at every opportunity, although they never managed to find time for more than quick kisses and teasing strokes. People still asked them why they weren't yet married, and despite his father erupting into coughing fits every time it came up, increasingly Kurt couldn't find an answer. _Why not?_ he wondered.

Then Blaine got sick.

It was really just a fever, not exactly an uncommon thing to happen in winter. Especially given that Blaine had been living with New York weather for a year and a half. He obviously hadn't adapted to the change in environment that had come with a return to Ohio.

"He's not feeling well tonight, but he'll be fine," Kurt had said airily to Carole when she'd asked why Blaine wasn't over for Christmas dinner. "It's just the flu."

Over the next week, Blaine hadn't gotten worse, but he also hadn't gotten better. Kurt woke up next to him one night to find him covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and as he was dragged by his tired and confused boyfriend into the shower to get cleaned up, Blaine mentioned for the first time that he didn't think it was the flu.

"I haven't gotten the flu in years, Kurt. I never get sick around this time of year."

"Maybe it's a new strain," Kurt had reasoned. "Maybe you've been more stressed than before. Maybe it's the change in weather."

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

They'd agreed that if it hadn't gone away by New Year's Eve, they'd fly home to New York and see a doctor there. No point staying in Ohio if it was something that might take a while to heal. They had lives – classes, jobs, each other – to get back to, after all.

As it happened, they ended up spending most of New Year's Eve on a plane, finally choosing to take Carole's advice and get Blaine to a doctor sooner rather than later. No one on the plane really wanted to be on that flight back to New York, but the cabin crew were kind enough to oblige as Kurt ordered cup after cup of water, forcing them on Blaine or chugging them down himself to try and diffuse the tension beginning to build up in his gut.

They'd watched the fireworks and celebrations on TV, smiled and laughed at the phone calls and text messages and emails that flooded in as the night went on, and then finally fallen asleep together on the couch as the first hints of sunlight began reflecting off skyscraper windows. Kurt awoke to find Blaine sweating heavily again, and lay a damp cloth on his forehead, checked the heat wasn't turned up too high, then called to make an appointment with a doctor.

Fortunately, by the time they could see someone, Blaine was feeling better. Kurt watched his boyfriend closely as he said that the fever felt like it was going away, and his heavy, sleepy, icky feeling of being out of sorts was also fading. Perhaps everything would be okay.

"I want you to go to a clinic," the doctor said, writing an address on a slip of paper. Her tone was emotionless, empty, apathetic as she continued. "You'll both need to get tested for the following infections."

Kurt scanned the list: gonorrhoea, herpes, HPV, syphilis, HIV/AIDS...

"This is pointless," Kurt told the silent room, the blank-faced doctor and her stupid list. "We don't have an STI! We've only ever-"

"This is the treatment I'm prescribing," the doctor interrupted. "I'd advise you to follow it through, and then come back to see me."

She stood and walked over to the door, opening it wide. The sounds of the waiting room echoed inside – children playing with the pile of toys in the corner, teenagers with iPods turned up too loud, men and women with heads buried in magazines or Blackberries.

Feeling numb, but not numb, really – feeling _angry_ – Kurt had gotten up and offered Blaine his hand. Brow furrowed in confusion, eyes searching the ground as if it had all the answers, Blaine accepted it silently. His gaze flitted up as Kurt squeezed his fingers tight, and Kurt was calmed somewhat by the utterly bewildered look on his boyfriend's face. Like usual, it seemed, Blaine was able to suppress the anger, and was instead searching his mind for the real solution to this puzzling turn of events.

"Have a Happy New Year," the doctor muttered as Kurt and Blaine passed by.

They both refused to respond.

Two days and a surprisingly tepid fight later, Blaine grasped his boyfriend's hand as they sat on sticky plastic seats in a hospital waiting room. Kurt's leg was jigging with impatience, and he was chewing his bottom lip to pulp.

He didn't want to be nervous about this, knew with absolute certainty that there was no reason to be nervous, and yet... it was difficult not to be nervous when waiting for the results of a test like this to come back. Especially when sitting in a room filled with people that Kurt – even with no training, no PhD – thought he could probably diagnose already. Herpes: the woman with the sores around her mouth. Chlamydia: the man clutching his crotch surreptitiously and wincing every time he shifted in his chair. _Pregnancy_: the girl with a bloated stomach, sobbing into the shoulder of a teenage boy.

"We have the results."

Kurt jumped when the nurse address them, standing as she moved closer. His eyes zoomed in on the chart she held in her hand.

"It's not that I thought there'd be any problems," Kurt said quickly, glancing between Blaine and the clipboard. "It's just better to ask and be told there's nothing wrong than to-"

He broke off, taking in the nurse's expression.

"-not," he finished lamely.

"What is it?" Blaine asked.

The woman's eyes turned on him.

And that was when the monster that had been sneaking up for weeks, for _months_, finally revealed itself: when the nurse handed them the slip of paper. 'Blaine Anderson' was written in the top corner, and below was an orderly table that seemed to be blurring as Kurt's eyes scanned down it. Cross after cross after cross filled the rows until, halfway down the page, a decisive tick stood out from the rest. The floor sloped down and Earth flew out of orbit as Kurt took in the words that corresponded to the tick: HIV.

Somewhere between the doors out of the hospital and their car, Kurt managed to turn the world right-way-up again, roll it onto his shoulders, and re-adjust the crushing weight that so long ago Blaine had helped him to throw off. He made it manageable again, worked out a way to bear a load that he'd never expected to have to carry.

It was simple really. The world was just righting itself.

Because Blaine had turned Kurt's universe inside out and upside down that day on the steps at McKinley, and it only made sense that everything would spring back into its correct shape eventually. Hell, maybe Blaine had started doing the damage that very first day on the staircase at Dalton or the evening by the fire or the afternoon against the table, when he'd sent tiny fake-crystals falling to the floor as he'd pushed Kurt back into the-

"No, Kurt! Kurt, please stop! Wait! Just give me a chance to- _Kurt_!"

They both stopped running when they reached the car, and Kurt could see that Blaine was panting from exertion. He hadn't recovered from his... fever... yet. That was why he was short of breath.

It had nothing to do with the systematic, neat tick on a piece of paper. _Nothing_. That paper was detached, irrelevant. It couldn't dictate their lives, change their reality. _Nothing's going to change_, Kurt had said, all that time ago. And Blaine had agreed, Blaine had _promised_ it wouldn't.

Kurt opened his door, ducked into the car and shoved the keys in the ignition. He didn't turn them yet, dropping his hands to his lap and waiting until Blaine was inside too and had closed his door. The action shut out the hustle and bustle of New York, making things somehow seem more manageable, more comprehensible – narrowing it all down to this tiny space.

"You dick."

The words were harsh and violent and _broken_, and Kurt hated how much they hurt to say. How through the wild, thrashing pain that threatened to spill over, he felt bad about saying it aloud. He felt tears pool in his eyes, but he was too shocked, too frozen to do anything about them – wipe them away or let them fall.

"I- I didn't..." Blaine struggled to continue, and the unfinished sentence – as if he were physically incapable of admitting to any of it – made Kurt even madder than before.

The flash of emotion that curled through him was like a tongue of fire and it set everything off – the tears, the shouting, the horrible, horrible _truth_ that he'd been trying with all his might to hold back.

"You didn't what?" he challenged, voice too loud in the small car. The sound of it hurt his ears, hurt his throat, hurt _everything_. "You didn't cheat on me? You didn't do something so incredibly _stupid_ that it's going to ruin both of our lives?"

And that was it, really. That was the reality that the tick on the paper had sketched out, that was what Blaine's inability to accept or deny his own guilt had confirmed.

Their lives – everything they had worked towards, dreamed of, started to build – was gone. And it wasn't even gone because Blaine didn't love Kurt or didn't want him or didn't care anymore, but because he'd done something _stupid_. God, it sounded cruel to put it that way, but that was the truth of it. Because both of them had been clean when they'd started going out, and now Blaine _wasn't_, so obviously he'd done _something_ to change that. But that wasn't what hurt, not yet, at least. What hurt was that Blaine had made a mistake and hadn't even had the guts to admit it. Hadn't even had the strength or the respect or the goddamn _courage_ to tell Kurt about it.

For a second Kurt made himself forget about the disease itself, about every horror that it entailed – the three little letters that essentially stamped RIP across Blaine's life – and focussed on the first shocking part.

Blaine was sick. Kurt wasn't. Hence, Blaine had gotten sick by catching his sickness from someone else.

Kurt knew that that much was right. He rewarded himself by sucking in a deep breath. Breathe.

The sickness that Blaine had was mostly caught by sharing needles, infected blood transfusions or unprotected sex. Blaine hated injections, and wasn't addicted to any illicit substances, and hadn't gotten a blood transfusion ever. Which meant that he must have had unprotected sex. Recently. With someone other than Kurt. Because Kurt wasn't sick. Yet.

Breathe.

The breathing was helping to sort the facts out, but still none of it made sense. Not on a literal level, not on a _this is real, this is happening_ level.

Kurt opened his mouth to breathe again, but Blaine spoke before he could make the effort to inhale.

"This doesn't have to be your problem, Kurt!"

It was _too much_. Too many facts that weren't facts and things that were meant to be feelings – jealousy, resentment, anger – but weren't, because they were definitely very real. Real to the point where Kurt could feel them like extra limbs, extensions of himself. If he twisted that way he could slash Blaine with jealousy, pummel him with resentment, finish him off with a fatal stab of anger.

But he didn't want to hurt Blaine because he was _Blaine_ and although Kurt's mind struggled to comprehend any of_ this_, he could absolutely grasp onto that one, singular fact, because it was the only thing that was certain.

That man, sitting right there, was someone Kurt loved. He was sitting in Blaine's seat and he was wearing Blaine's clothes and – other than the crushed, scared, lost expression in his eyes and embedded in every inch of his body – he looked like Blaine. Which had to mean he _was_ Blaine.

Breathe.

"You just did it again," Kurt finally whispered, holding on to that one conviction, that one thing that without a doubt was true.

"Did what?" Blaine asked.

Blaine's voice, Blaine's lips, Blaine's words.

And yet...

Why would Blaine think that any problem of his wasn't a problem of Kurt's? Why would Blaine not realise that anything and everything he had to deal with, Kurt had to deal with too? Why would Blaine not want Kurt's help and support and love, especially if he was going through something as difficult, as seemingly unconquerable, as this?

Only one answer presented itself to Kurt's desperately searching mind: _because he doesn't want me anymore_.

"Broke my heart," he said.

Blaine's face crumpled at the words and he looked like he wanted to reach out, but was holding himself back. Kurt just stared at him for a while longer, silently begging him to wrap his arms around him and pull him onto his lap. Kurt wanted to be held and kissed and comforted, wanted to be told that everything would be okay. He wanted the Blaine Anderson who had sent him _courage_ when he needed it and who loved him unwaveringly.

Instead, there was a speechless, still, shell of a man. Eyes empty, mouth gaping. _Changed_. As if someone had inserted a tube into Blaine's body and sucked out everything inside, tossing the remains to Kurt.

Wordlessly, Kurt looked away. He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, instinct telling him how to stop, which way to turn, what to do next.

The drive home was silent, and with his mind free to roam, Kurt went back to painstakingly churning the facts over in his head, forcing his mind to be reconciled with each new slice of reality before introducing it to the next one.

Blaine was sick. Blaine was very sick. Blaine was going to die.

It took ten blocks to deal with that last one, and when, even then, it still wouldn't settle, Kurt pushed it away and tried a new approach.

Breathe.

Blaine cheated on me. Blaine didn't tell me. Blaine is upset about it.

But again Kurt reached a barrier. Why was Blaine upset? Was it because he was sick, or because he'd cheated, or because Kurt had found out? Had he known before now, sensed it, even if he wasn't yet diagnosed? Was that why...?

Breathe.

Blaine had a problem. Blaine needed someone to look after him. Kurt wanted to look after him.

It took the rest of the trip to the apartment to admit to that final one, but by the time they'd pulled up in the still-empty spot in an alley around the back of the building, Kurt had managed it.

Because he _did_ want to look after Blaine. That's what this was all about, really: being in New York, living together, loving each other. Kurt had committed himself to looking after Blaine ever since Blaine had appeared on the steps at McKinley, singing his heart out to a courtyard brimming with hostility. Ever since Blaine had wrapped Kurt up in his arms and Kurt had uttered the word 'never', a sort of permanence had settled over the two of them, one that promised _stability_ and _future_ and _together, no matter what_.

Well, Kurt reasoned, this was just one of many 'what's to add to the list. And, just like 'no matter if you keep torturing your hair with too much gel', 'no matter if you insist on stealing my bowties' and 'no matter if you have an unhealthy but incredibly hot obsession with my collarbone', this could be dealt with. Kurt could learn to love Blaine in spite – and, maybe eventually, as had happened with the other things – _because_ of this. It was just another of Blaine's quirks. Just another thing for Kurt to teach himself to accept.

Blaine got out of the car first and walked to Kurt's door, opening it and cautiously holding out his hand.

Kurt thought of slapping it away for a moment. Then he thought of getting up and punching Blaine in the face. Then he thought of kicking him in the groin, the stomach, the chest, again and again and again, making him scream and cry and _hurt_. But none of those thoughts made him feel better. They just made him feel empty. Like the apathetic eyes of the doctor who handed out death sentences all day, every day. An executioner of the twenty-first century. Kurt didn't want to become one of them.

"Thanks," he murmured, taking Blaine's hand and letting himself be pulled up.

They didn't speak the whole walk around the building and upstairs to their apartment. When they got inside it was cold and empty and felt less like home than it ever had before. For a dizzying moment, Kurt thought back to Rachel on the morning he'd moved in with her and Blaine, and how they'd kicked her out so they could spend the day together. He wished they were back to that moment, and instead of staying with Blaine he'd opened the door and asked Rachel to come back in, to stay there and keep them safe and make sure nothing bad ever happened.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Blaine finally asked, releasing Kurt's hand with a sigh and walking away to collapse onto the couch.

Kurt watched curiously, feeling as if he'd never seen Blaine move before.

It was a miracle, really, the way Blaine moved. How those legs were strong enough to hold up the weight of a body that Kurt had felt on top of his more times than he could remember. How those arms could seem so useless at a time like this, and yet were so instrumental when they tightened around Kurt's body, holding him close. How that head was perched on nothing more than a thin column of neck, and yet was able to hold absolutely everything that Blaine was, all protected by nothing but a skull.

Why had Kurt never noticed this before? Why had he never seen how beautiful, how heart-wrenchingly _perfect_ Blaine was until now? Was this the type of thing a person could only come to appreciate when they knew it was going to, one day, disappear?

"Yes," Kurt answered, still standing by the door, unsure where to go or what to do. "Do you want coffee?"

Blaine chuckled and it sounded so tired and so _old_, making Kurt suddenly take another look at his boyfriend and notice that, in the past hour or so, he'd aged a lifetime.

"No, thank you. Kurt, I want to talk."

"Me too," Kurt assured him, wincing at the absent, tinny quality his voice had taken on.

He wondered, surprising himself when he realised it was only the first time, if this was a dream. Maybe that was why everything felt so surreal, so unstable. Perhaps he'd wake up in a couple of minutes: tired, scared, but _safe_ again. And he'd roll over and Blaine would be beside him – a Blaine who wasn't sick and whose face didn't look like he'd seen far too much of the world, far too soon. Kurt would whisper into Blaine's shoulder every single fear that he hadn't even known he'd had, but that this nightmare had forced him to acknowledge, and then Blaine would kiss him and hold him and make him forget everything else except for how much he loved him. Unwaveringly, unconditionally, truly. Forever.

"Is this real?" Kurt heard his voice say.

From the couch that seemed a million miles away, Blaine nodded slowly at him and murmured, "I think it is."

The last little thread of sanity that Kurt had been grasping onto snapped, and somehow he ended up on his knees on the floor, choking out mad, ugly sobs that shook his entire body and made him _hurt, hurt, hurt_. Then Blaine was at his side and he was crying too and his arms were around Kurt and his head was cradled between his neck and his shoulder. They were wound up so tightly together that it was painful but it still _wasn't enough_ and Kurt wanted Blaine around him and inside him and a part of him, because at moments like that they felt so inseparable, so symbiotic, that there was no way anything could ever come between them.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" Blaine was whispering into Kurt's skin, wet and moist and warm.

Kurt wanted to tell him that it was okay, that everything would be okay, but he couldn't because he didn't know. He was struck, in a moment of clarity as tears continued to pour down his face, by just how _young_ he was – how young they both were – and how completely unprepared they were for anything like this. He didn't know what to say or do or think. His mind, his body, his _everything_ just wasn't equipped to deal with this, to work out where to even start dealing with it.

_...and then come back to see me_.

The doctor's words from before floated into Kurt's mind, and it was all he could do to grasp onto them, because despite how cold and terrifying and _true_ everything about that visit had been, at least it was a start. It was someone on their side, someone who _did_ have a clue about what to do next. So that's what they'd do. They'd go back and they'd sit and talk and listen. With her, together, they'd work it out.

"Shhh, Blaine. Shhh, don't worry, don't cry, don't worry."

Kurt didn't know what he was saying, didn't even know how he'd found the strength – drawing what little he could from the blissful _plan_ beginning to form in his head – to make any noise at all, but he felt Blaine's trembling form still a little at the words.

"We'll go see the doctor tomorrow, okay?" he cooed. "And then we can talk and she can tell us what to do. You're going to be fine, Blaine. Don't worry, don't worry. We're going to be fine."

"I love you," Blaine told him, and Kurt could feel the words on his neck, as if they were being painted onto his skin, absorbed into his body.

"Okay," Kurt replied, turning his face to say it into the crisp cool air. "It's okay, don't worry. We're okay."

It took longer than it should have for Kurt and Blaine to untangle themselves from their heap on the living room floor and make it to their bedroom. Once there, they changed into pyjamas without exchanging so much as a look, let alone any words, and then silently slipped into bed together.

For a moment both of them were still, and Kurt supposed that Blaine must feel as he did – utterly drained. If this were a nightmare, he thought, this would be the time for it to end. So he buried himself in the covers and willed himself to wake up. When he felt Blaine touch him, his arm curving around Kurt's waist and pulling him back gently against his chest, he let himself think he'd woken up.

"I love you," Blaine murmured from behind him, voice croaky from all the crying. "You know that, right?"

Kurt rolled over to face Blaine but refused to look up, instead pushing his head into Blaine's chest, forcing himself closer, until he could feel Blaine's heart beating inside him. Pressing his forehead there, Kurt closed his eyes and let the steady _thump thump thump _synchronise with own heartbeat. As Kurt cowered in Blaine's arms, he waited until he couldn't distinguish their pulses from each other. Because they were both absolutely vital to Kurt's existence, to his survival. Neither of them was ever, _ever_ allowed to stop.

"Right?" Blaine prompted, his grip tightening against Kurt's back.

"I've loved you every minute of every day since I met you," Kurt finally mumbled.

They both knew it didn't answer the question at all.

"Even now?" Blaine pushed, as if he couldn't fall asleep without knowing the answer.

Kurt sighed and moved his forehead off where it pushed against Blaine's heart. He stared at Blaine's chin, at his neck, at the spot he'd missed when he'd shaved that morning.

"Even now," he whispered, pressing a kiss to that one little spot – a strange little memorial to their life before all of this.

"Me, too," Blaine said.

Kurt didn't know if he believed it or not, but that hardly seemed to matter right now. What mattered was that Blaine was here, with him. With a heart that beat and a mouth that spoke sweet, beautiful promises and lies. But how long would this last?

When the truth came out – the details of when and who and _why_ – Kurt wondered if he'd still be able to stay. How long would he be willing to wait with Blaine, to watch him die for a mistake he'd made all on his own? Blaine had been right before when he'd said it didn't have to be Kurt's problem, but- but Kurt _wanted _it to be his problem. Kurt _wanted_ Blaine. Forever, or for as close to it as he could get.

So, when Kurt leant in closer to Blaine again, pressing another kiss to his neck, and heard three words, he knew exactly what to say. Because, this time, Blaine wasn't lying or promising or trying to be brave. Now, Blaine was begging, "Don't leave me" and Kurt was assuring him, "Never."


	5. The Fourth Time Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye

**_Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye_**

_**... And One Time He Did**_

* * *

><p>-4-<p>

_Spring 2015_

...

"How's Blaine doing?"

Brendan's tone was one of surrender, as if he didn't want to be talking about this, but felt obligated to address it.

Kurt shrugged, pulling his jacket tighter around his chest in a useless effort to close himself off from the barrage of emotions that still flared up at mentions of his boyfriend's condition.

"He's fine."

"Fine?" Brendan echoed with raised eyebrows. "How d'you figure that?"

Sighing, Kurt put his cup of tea back on the table, shoving it away from him as the odour made his head swirl dizzily. He'd never been a keen tea-drinker, but the doctor had suggested that Blaine start having tea instead of coffee, and Kurt had felt obliged to join him in the venture. It was one of many lifestyle changes that they'd had to adjust to over the past few months, all in an effort to prolong Blaine's life for as long as possible.

It made Kurt blanch internally to have to think those words, to have to even imagine the concept of Blaine not being around for the rest of eternity. When had their lives suddenly shifted from a focus on _living_ to a focus on _not dying_?

The problem was that Blaine was young, and doctor after doctor kept saying that no one could predict how the virus would act in his body. And while, with proper medication, Kurt and Blaine had been assured that some 40 year-olds hadn't died until the ripe old age of 82, adding 42 years to Blaine's comparatively young life was really, _really_ not enough.

"I don't-" Kurt could feel sobs building in his throat and broke off as he tried to force them back down. "I don't know what to say, Brendan. What do you want me to say about Blaine?"

Brendan's gaze was sure and hard as he answered, without hesitation, "That he's ruining your life."

Kurt shook his head insistently, closing his eyes and pulling his coat still tighter, wondering if the chill he felt was him or a cool spring breeze.

Already, he regretted leaving Blaine to have this lunch with Brendan. It wasn't that Blaine needed constant care or anything like that. In fact, it was Kurt who needed the attention, the continuous assurance that his boyfriend was _there_ and _alive_. In different circumstances perhaps, Kurt might have been impressed with his boyfriend's ability to hold together and stay strong in a situation such as this, but now Kurt barely noticed. It took all his concentration to make it through each and every day of his own life. Because it would be a cruel irony if Kurt got himself killed in a car crash or blizzard or by being mauled to death by an escaped zoo animal, especially after having spent months trying to reconcile himself with Blaine being the one who was going to die first. Although it had struck Kurt sometimes – usually when he was alone and cold and trying to remember why he bothered holding himself together – that maybe, ultimately, dying would be easier than living through this.

"I love Blaine," Kurt answered finally with a shrug, as if it explained everything. Which, really – even if Brendan couldn't see it – it did.

"_How_? How can you still love him after what he's done?"

As he stared with narrowed eyes at his friend, Kurt decided that he didn't like this new, bolder Brendan. He liked the silly, self-deprecating, bashful man who he'd met at college, who he'd bonded with so quickly and so easily. The Brendan who'd faked a swoon every time Blaine's name came up in conversation and who'd excused himself from his and Kurt's dorm room many times in their first year as roommates, leaving with a wink and smile every time things became heated over Skype.

"Blaine hasn't done anything wrong, Brendan," Kurt explained, "he just made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes."

"_Made a mistake?_ Kurt, he _cheated_ on you. He slept with some sleazy, HIV-infested guy and didn't even tell you!"

It was the type of comment that, a month or two ago, would've sent Kurt into a frenzy. Anger, sadness, hatred at everyone and everything in this stupid world that allowed shit like this to happen to good, _good_ people- but now... nothing.

Holding his breath, Kurt took another reluctant sip of his tea, trying not to wince at the taste.

"Blaine did tell me," Kurt insisted. "Just... later than he should've. You know he actually sat me down the next morning – the day after we found out about... it – and told me everything? And he showed me this letter he'd written to me, these songs he'd found to try and explain it all, because Blaine's never really been able to say anything just in words. He's a multi-media kind of guy, if that makes sense. Needs to sketch things out in every dimension before he can really be sure he's communicated them properly. I actually think that's why he's-"

"Stop, Kurt! Just... stop pretending that- that you're not- that this isn't... How can you be so _calm_ about this?"

"I have to be. What else can I do, Brendan?"

"_Leave him!_"

There was silence between the two for a long time, and Kurt looked around at the other people in the diner they were sitting in. It was a compliment to the calibre of New Yorkers that not one person had so much as glanced towards Kurt and Brendan's conversation, despite its controversial topic. If they'd been in Lima, everyone would've known about this by now. Kurt liked the anonymity that the vastness of New York offered him, although couldn't help but acknowledge the strangeness that, in a city he'd come to hoping to be noticed, he was instead grateful to sink into ambiguity.

"Besides, not all HIV-infected men are sleazy. That's my boyfriend you're talking about."

Brendan shook his head at the joke, not even bothering to fake a laugh. Kurt didn't blame him – it hadn't been very funny. Then again, not a lot of things were funny these days. It hurt Kurt to think back and attempt to remember the last time he'd truly smiled. No matter how hard he tried to recollect happiness, joy or humour, nothing ever came through, just weird bits of memories and hazy images: Blaine's grin and his sparkling amber eyes, a Christmas tree in his home in Lima, Rachel dancing around their living room with her now live-in boyfriend.

"Who did Blaine sleep with then, if it wasn't someone sleazy?"

Closing his eyes as he sipped his tea again, Kurt put the cup back on the table so Brendan wouldn't notice his hands were shaking.

In the back of his mind, in a neglected corner that Kurt rarely let himself visit, he knew why Brendan was doing this. He knew what was driving this vindictive interrogation, this misplaced attempt to make Kurt realise what an idiot he was for forgiving Blaine. It was no secret, really, that ever since Kurt had moved out, Brendan's feelings for him had changed. He'd started getting clingy and jealous and rude, and all of sudden he and Blaine had begun to hate each other and exchange nothing but obligatory small-talk and steely glances whenever Kurt insisted they be in the same room.

Brendan was angry, and maybe, in some alternate universe, he had a right to be. In a universe, where Kurt wasn't Kurt and Blaine wasn't Blaine. Where the single entity that was Kurt-and-Blaine, by some merciful or cruel or kind – it was impossible to tell which – twist of fate, had never existed.

But this wasn't that universe. And so, with a sigh, Kurt started to relay the evening where everything had gone wrong.

"The man's name was Kyle. Blaine met him at that club down by the bakery with the mouldy bread, when a bunch of his friends from the musical went there after rehearsal one night. They'd done shots, which was why Blaine was so drunk. Kyle and he had sex in the stall at the end in the bathrooms on the second floor. Blaine kept saying my name and Kyle got pissed off so he didn't stay around afterwards."

Kurt's tone was methodical and emotionless, one he had learnt from their doctor and, if the scenario had been completely different, he'd be quite proud of his ability to mimic. Brendan, thankfully, was watching with his mouth gaping open, apparently stunned at the detail at which Blaine's story was being told.

"Blaine left the bathrooms after a while and found his friends and told them he was leaving. Justin walked outside with him and found him a cab. He says Blaine was sounding and acting weird, kind of dazed. In retrospect he thinks maybe someone had slipped him something, but at the time he admits he was too drunk to think twice about it.

"I remember when Blaine came home that night. He smelled terrible, but he always does after nights out with that crowd. So I forced him to have a shower and helped him clean himself up. Not that he needed help," Kurt's tone had changed, losing its emotionless thrum to convey more of his true reaction to it all. He laughed stiffly, almost chiding himself, as he said, "Honestly, I was kind of hoping he and I could have sex that night. We hadn't in a while because of conflicting rehearsal schedules and stuff. But Blaine was too tired and drunk and... everything else, so we just went to sleep.

"I woke up sometime that night and he was crying. I think it must have been when he'd sobered up or whatever someone had slipped him had worn off. I'd been holding him because it was winter and he needed to keep warm, and I'd just felt him sobbing into my shirt. And for some stupid, stupid reason I didn't ask him what was wrong. I just closed my eyes and went back to sleep, because I had an early class the next day and whatever had happened I figured Blaine could fix it on his own.

"That week was when his musical and my performance were both on, so we did those and then a couple of days later we headed off to Ohio. Blaine still hadn't slept with me – hadn't done anything with me, actually –and I didn't really think about why, because it always seemed like we just didn't have the opportunity. But now I know he was trying not to, just in case. Even back then, when he knew he still couldn't tell me because it was Christmas and we were with family and he didn't want to ruin it all, he was being careful. Protecting me. And when he was sick and he started to think about what it could be, he wouldn't let me get worried, because he wanted me to keep enjoying myself for as long as I could before he'd-"

"Shut up, please! Stop acting like he did the right thing, like Blaine is the good guy in all of this. He _cheated_ on you! Why can't you understand that?"

Anger welled up inside Kurt – anger at being interrupted, anger at being here and now and stuck in this horrible situation in this horrible world.

It wasn't fair that it was coming out now, aimed at Brendan who, despite everything, was really nothing but an innocent bystander, a would-be friend trying to do the right thing. But Kurt didn't need the right thing now. He needed hope and he needed support and he needed Blaine, Blaine, Blaine: the man who had only ever slept with him, who had moved to New York to be with him, who had given up Dalton and safety and so much else for nothing but plain, simple, wonderful _love_.

"Why can't _you _understandit, Brendan – understand that Blaine loves me and I love him and that's all that matters? _Yes_, he did something stupid, but it wasn't malicious or intentional! He just made a mistake. Even good guys make mistakes. And still he did _everything_ he could to try and protect me from it, to make sure it wouldn't hurt me!"

Brendan was shaking his head disbelievingly as he cried, "But it _is_ hurting you! Look at you, Kurt; look at what it's done to you! You are giving up _everything_ you are and could be to make things easier for Blaine, when the truth is that he wouldn't do the same for you!"

The words were sharp as they lingered in the space between them. Kurt's mouth was set in a hard line, and he sensed that Brendan knew he had crossed some unwritten barrier.

Because what in the world did Brendan know? What did Brendan know about the things Blaine had given up for Kurt – about the scholarship for UCLA and the trust fund from his father and the thousands upon thousands of boys he'd turned down without a second thought? What gave Brendan the right to deem Blaine unworthy of Kurt's love, to suggest that Kurt himself hadn't even noticed all the changes that Blaine had inflicted upon his life?

God, Kurt _knew_. He'd known when Blaine had flipped his world over the first time and he'd known when Blaine had done it again. He'd noticed when he'd started dressing differently and acting differently around Blaine, all those years ago in the heavenly halls of Dalton. And he was aware of more changes now. Only an idiot wouldn't have noticed that the Kurt Hummel of four months ago was gone.

But what gave Brendan the right to judge those changes? What allowed Brendan to say that the Kurt Hummel who was quieter and meeker and more introverted wasn't just as good as the one from before? This was a Kurt who was adjusting, coping, painstakingly changing millions of tiny aspects of his life to accommodate for what was less a thorn and more a metaphorical Empire State Building imbedded in his leg.

Yet, still, it was _his _leg. Blaine was a part of him, a vital limb, one that sometimes stumbled, sometimes collapsed under pressure, but nonetheless was absolutely necessary. As hard as it was to imagine a future without Blaine, it was worse to imagine a _present_ without him. If Kurt was allowed forty more years of this, he'd take them without a fuss. Even if he could only have twenty years, ten years, five years – he'd take everything he could get.

"Blaine loves me," Kurt repeated, draining the last of his tea. "And I love him."

The conviction in the words seemed to startled Brendan into silence, making him watch dumbly as Kurt stood and announced, "I'm going to love him and stay with him for the rest of our lives. I'm never, _ever _letting him go. If you can't handle that, then it's you I should be leaving."

When no reply came from his friend of almost three years, Kurt just nodded in acknowledgement of Brendan's decision.

"Goodbye," he said, and then turned his back and walked away.

No tears stung in his eyes with this farewell, and Kurt was surprised that it didn't hurt at all. Every single time he'd ever had to leave Blaine, no matter how briefly, the pain of it had been undeniable. But this... this was easy. This was fine.

A sense of achievement dawned on Kurt at the thought, at the confirmation that Blaine really did mean as much to him as he had long suspected. As Kurt crossed a busy road, heading for where he'd parked the car, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and dug it out.

_How is lunch with Brendan going?_ Blaine's message asked.

_It's over. Didn't go well. He wanted to talk about you._

Kurt found the car and took his time to unlock it, putting his bag in the backseat before sliding into the front and checking his phone again.

_What did he say?_

Kurt typed out, _Nothing I haven't heard before, _then rested his phone on his lap as he retrieved his key and put it in the ignition. He turned the car on and fiddled with the dial on the radio, searching for a good station, before Blaine answered with, _What did you say?_

An old, familiar song came on midway through, and as the chorus rang out of the car's crappy speakers, Kurt felt his cheeks twitch as he suppressed some sort of strong, unidentifiable emotion.

_Goodbye_, Kurt replied simply, stowing his phone in the glove compartment once the message had sent. He reached over to turn up the music as he pulled out onto the street, and when his phone buzzed again he ignored it, just letting the music flow over him.

And, just like that, amidst the bumper-to-bumper traffic that defined New York, Kurt let himself really _feel_ for the first time in months. He let himself be assaulted by the one single memory that the song conjured, vivid and wonderful and _real_. It was the most real he'd felt since that one stolen night too long ago to properly remember, the night when he and Blaine had last – really, truly, heart-breakingly _last_ – made love: too tired, too exhausted, too caught up in each other's beauty to stop.

As the music swelled, the conjured ghost of a teenage Blaine surrounded him, filling Kurt's vision, looking down at him from the steps at McKinley. The crowd watching on wavered in the peripheries, but the sincere, honest, adoring expression on Blaine's face was all that mattered to Kurt. It was an expression that mimicked Blaine's had gazed into Kurt's eyes and said wonderful things about _looking for you_ and _being moved_ and _forever_.

Giving in to the fantasy, Kurt sighed and released the crazy, miraculous smile that had been tickling his lips. He thought of kisses and promises and nervous first touches and sudden, addictive noises and every single moment that had made him fall more and more in love with Blaine every day they'd spent together or apart. Memories of _practise_ or lack thereof and of doing homework together and holding hands in Warbler rehearsals, or later in the choir room with the New Directions – of all the tiny, silly things that inexplicably mattered so much to their relationship.

It struck Kurt again, in a way that didn't happen often, and hadn't happened for far too long, that damn it he _loved_ that boy and the man he'd grown into. God, it was _so obvious_ – so _clear_ and _true_ –that Kurt was bewildered by the thought that anyone could ever miss it. And maybe it had been dumb and too soon and impossible, but when he'd promised Blaine forever he'd _meant it_. He still did mean it.

It was probably – definitely – foolish to stubbornly stick to a few choice words whispered by a seventeen year-old who was utterly ignorant of a lot of the ugliness of the world. But everyone, _everyone_ makes mistakes, and Kurt would gladly bear this one to the grave.

It didn't matter what Brendan said or thought, because he didn't know Kurt like Kurt knew himself, and he definitely didn't know Blaine. But Kurt did. Kurt knew what love was like and what future was like and how it felt to want to be with someone for the rest of eternity. And all of those concepts were so intricately, so permanently tied to Blaine, Blaine, _Blaine_ that he couldn't even begin to separate them in his mind.

Love was loving Blaine. Future was a future with Blaine. Wanting to be with someone forever was wanting Blaine: constantly, endlessly, infinitely.

So it was without any hesitation that Kurt silently renewed his vow to Blaine then and there, with all of New York City as his witness: he would never, no matter what, say goodbye to the man he loved.

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><p><strong>I have been specifically not writing ANs for a long time because we all know how wordy I get, but I felt that something needed to be said here, so please read on:<strong>

**This story is _not_ going to address how Kurt reacts to Blaine cheating on him any more than it already has. In case it didn't come across, Blaine had sex with someone else because of a combination of bad circumstances and poor decisions that just happened to align one night. As Kurt keeps insisting, Blaine simply made a _mistake_ - it was a one-time thing and, if nothing had come of it, I don't actually even think that Kurt would've been _that_ angry when Blaine told him about it (and yes, Blaine would have told him). In my mind, and hence in the mind of the Kurt who I'm telling all of this through, Blaine cheating is not the 'complication' in this story.**

**However, that being said, I have a massive amount of headcanon for this 'verse that had to be cut, some of which is to do with how Kurt deals with Blaine having cheated, as well as some regarding his relationship with Brendon. So if anyone would be interested in me posting those extra bits and pieces (probably not stories, just explanations), could you please raise your hand or something?**

**Also, just a warning, the next chapter is... urgh. I have trouble making it through, and I freaking wrote it! I'm sorry in advance to putting you all through it.**


	6. The Fifth Time Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye

**A/N: I have started working on a series of posts about my headcanon for this 'verse. They do, however, contain spoilers for this chapter, so read this first and then check out my tumblr if you're interested.**

**Also, I realised retrospectively that I put a lot of pressure on myself for this chapter, so please do your best to begin it with low expectations, just in case.**

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><p><strong><em><span>Five Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye<span>_**

_**... And One Time He Did**_

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><p>-5-<p>

_Autumn (Fall) 2016_

...

It was tomorrow. _Tomorrow_.

Kurt's heart was fluttering in his chest as he stood before the bathroom mirror, staring at his own reflection. Pale skin, grey eyes, thin lips, flushed cheeks. It would almost have been possible to argue that nothing had changed since high school, when he'd first taken to looking, really _looking_, at himself in the mirror. Back then, it was for the same reason he did it now – a silly reason, obviously, but one that he couldn't help but wonder about: to try and see what Blaine saw.

Because tomorrow, he and Blaine were getting married. _Married_.

Rachel had ushered Blaine out of the apartment that afternoon to be kidnapped by her boyfriend and a couple of old and new friends who'd come to New York for the wedding. Kurt was being detained in the apartment with the girls, who had already given him a mani-pedi and were beginning to utter the words 'hair cut' when Kurt excused himself to go to the bathroom.

Tearing his eyes away from the mirror, still completely unable to see whatever it was that made Blaine gasp a little bit whenever their gazes locked, Kurt surveyed the room. It was clean – much cleaner than usual – with everything in its correct cabinet and nothing but a can of hairspray and a bar of soap sitting on the counter. Blaine's razor and shaving foam had left with him and the boys, and Kurt's things were already packed in his suitcase in preparation for their honeymoon, which they'd leave for tomorrow night.

It was... efficient. Sanitised, organised, disconcertingly neat and tidy, in a way that made Kurt's skin crawl a little, because this cleanliness made it feel like he wasn't standing in his own bathroom at all.

He and Blaine still lived in the same apartment that Rachel had bought almost three years ago. All three of them had lived there happily for a while, but when Rachel's boyfriend had moved in they'd quickly discovered that the space wasn't big enough for four people, two couples. So, in a strange twist of events that Kurt would never admit to having completely masterminded, he and Blaine had ended up with the apartment and Rachel and Patrick had moved to a place closer to the studio where they filmed their soap opera, now in its fourth successful season on TV.

Life just with Blaine hadn't been exactly what Kurt had expected. Blaine was still sick of course, but his medication meant that it hardly affected their lives anymore. All the lifestyle changes that had had to be made had been settled into now, and even though the smell of tea still made Kurt wince, it was bearable at least, knowing that it might be helping Blaine, improving his life by even the tiniest bit.

There had been scares, of course – a bout of the flu that had gotten worse than it should've and a period when Blaine's work had become to be too much and he'd broken out in a rash, bedridden and later hospitalised for a week, when the vomiting and sores had become impossible for Kurt to handle on his own. But, for the most part, life had been good. After a few embarrassing talks to their doctor, now affectionately referred to as Leslie, Kurt and Blaine had discovered what they could and couldn't safely do together, and after a month spent prancing around the flat in the most provocative clothes known to man, Kurt had convinced his boyfriend to give some things a try.

Looking back at the mirror, trying to see himself objectively, as he might appear to a stranger, Kurt began to notice some differences from before: the thinness of his cheeks, the seriousness of his eyes, the hard set of his jaw that hadn't been there when he was younger. He'd grown up a lot over the past year and half. Probably too much. His family sure thought so, his Dad had even told him so when he'd come on his own to visit, not long after hearing about Blaine's condition.

Burt had been the same as always, reluctantly surrendering without much of a fight to his son's stubborn insistence that everything would be all right and they didn't need any help. But Kurt knew for a fact that his father had started depositing a bit of money into Blaine's account to pay for hospital bills, and that sometimes he heard them talking on the phone late at night when Blaine couldn't sleep.

It was an unexpected direction for Kurt's life to have taken, but it wasn't bad, he constantly reminded himself. It was just different.

He was still living his dreams, after all. Being in New York, finishing his degree in musical theatre in the summer, the same year Blaine had finished his diploma in music. Kurt had auditioned for hundreds of roles over the summer, eventually landing himself a chorus part in _The Book of Mormon_ on Broadway, as well as a leading role in a smaller production. Meanwhile, Blaine was working as the accompanying pianist for the choir at a local high school, as well as playing the organ at the church down the road every Sunday. Neither of their jobs paid particularly well, but they managed to make ends meet, sometimes busking on street corners or, in Kurt's case, begging for a shift or two at their local Starbucks, when times got tough.

A tap on the bathroom door made Kurt jump, and he looked away from the mirror as, from outside, Rachel asked, "Kurt, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Kurt called back. "Just..."

"Pre-wedding jitters?"

"No. I just... I wish Blaine was here."

Rachel laughed in response, turning the door handle and letting herself in. She moved to stand beside Kurt at the counter, fixing a stray strand of her hair as she stared at both their reflections in the mirror.

"It'd be okay if you were nervous, you know," Rachel said quietly.

Kurt shook his head and replied, "But I'm not. I'm really not. I expected to be, but... it just feels _right_. I _want_ to marry Blaine. I can't wait to marry Blaine."

"That's good to hear," Rachel grinned. "Patrick texted to tell me that Blaine's been trying to call you all night. Apparently they had to take away his phone before he'd finally agree to have a drink at the bar they've gone to."

"That would explain why he hasn't been answering my calls."

Hitting Kurt on the shoulder in mock-punishment, Rachel said in a sing-song voice, "You're not supposed to be calling Blaine tonight! It's a night with the girls, remember? Now come back into the living room with me, please. If Tina asks me one more time how you and Blaine proposed I _swear_ I will die."

"Not funny," Kurt muttered, extracting his phone from his pocket and glancing at it, as if willing Blaine to call, before sighing and placing it on the counter. "But if it keeps you happy I'll leave this in here and try not to think about calling Blaine for at least the next few hours."

"You're a saint, Kurt," Rachel informed him with faux-sincerity, before grabbing his hand and tugging him out into the hallway. "Now come on – I want to hear the New Year's story again!"

Kurt groaned, dropping his head to roll his eyes at the carpet as he was pulled back into the living room. The small crowd of girls who Rachel had invited to his sorry excuse for a 'last night as a bachelor' party were giggling as he re-entered the room, and Mercedes shot him a look that said 'I know exactly what you've been doing', which Kurt shook his head in reply to.

No, he hadn't been having 'last night as fiancées' hot phone sex with his soon-to-be husband. And not just because Rachel's boyfriend had banned Blaine from using his phone. It was a sad fact that Kurt and Blaine had quickly discovered they could do more over the phone than they could in reality, and once that fact had settled sad and true inside Kurt's gut, the joys of relaying every dirty fantasy he'd ever had to someone thousands or, in the case of tonight, only a couple of miles away, had decreased significantly. It seemed to kill the passion a little when he had to whisper about holding back, about being careful, about never truly being satisfied.

"So, how's the fiancée doing on his boys' night out?" Sarah, a girl Rachel had befriended in college, asked.

Kurt shrugged and heaved a dramatic sigh.

"I wouldn't know," he answered, sitting on the space the girls shuffled over to make for him on the couch. "Rachel says Patrick has banned Blaine from using his phone, so I couldn't get through to him."

Tina was laughing as she said, "That has never made sense to me – why can't you talk to your husband on the night before the wedding? Honestly, if it were me, that's the one night I'd _want_ to be able to talk to him!"

"I think it's supposed to be a time to get your thoughts together," Quinn pointed out. "A last night spent on your own, to figure out if you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone else."

A few pairs of eyes turned to Kurt at the words, as if seeking some sort of assurance that he'd thought long and hard about this and wasn't just leaping impulsively into marriage without having considered all that it entailed. Kurt resisted huffing out angrily at the looks, at all these people who still insisted on judging him, on assuming that he had no idea how hard life could be.

Because, God, if _anyone_ knew how tough things could get, it was Kurt. In one single, life-changing moment, he'd simultaneously had his heart broken and his entire future torn apart. That day still stayed with him now, and would for years to come. Sometimes Kurt dreamed of a time in the future when old age would render his mind unable to divulge the bitter memories anymore, but mostly he feared it, feared losing it all. Somehow, those difficulties had become an intricate part of his identity, as much as the hollow cheeks and deep, troubled eyes were a part of him now.

Besides, Blaine was so closely intertwined with it all – Kurt's love for him thrumming in his chest right alongside the grief that threatened to break out prematurely every second of every day – that Kurt could never let it go. Blaine had been a part of his life for so long now that it was nothing short of insane to think that getting married was going to change anything. Tomorrow would only be making official the things that Kurt and Blaine had known forever: that they were meant for each other, and planned to spend the rest of their lives together.

Drawing himself out of his thoughts, Kurt hoisted a smile onto his face and glanced around at the gathered girls.

"So, who wants to hear the story of how Blaine and I proposed to each other?"

A cheer went up from the ones who hadn't heard it before, and the ones who had let out sighs of anticipated happiness. It was a great story after all.

Against his will, Kurt found himself getting caught up in the tale as he described that New Year's Eve, exactly a year after the one he and Blaine had spent on a plane back to New York. He acted out his own confusion, Blaine's nervous excitement, and the joyous exclamations of the people crowded around them on the street branching off Times Square. When he got to the part about Blaine's embarrassment at not having been able to actually propose in Times Square, since the crowds had prevented them from getting close enough, he even found himself laughing along with the girls.

What he excluded from the story was Blaine's nervousness, Blaine's heartfelt apology, Blaine's teary admission that he couldn't promise to be with Kurt forever. It was difficult for them both to try and organise a future where everything was so uncertain, but Kurt often felt that Blaine was more aware of it than he was. Blaine's own sudden mortality seemed to constantly be at the forefront of his mind, even as he'd stared up into Kurt's eyes and promised him a lifetime over and over again.

"I'll give you every year I can," Blaine had sworn as a crowd of strangers held their breath and watched on. "I will never, ever give up, never stop fighting this _thing _inside me, because I promise you now that, if you'll have me, every single breath I breathe will be for you. Everything I can give will be yours. Always, only for you, Kurt."

It wasn't the stuff of great romances, wasn't 'forever' or 'unconditional' or 'fate', because Blaine knew better than anyone that none of this was meant to be. Even as Kurt had sobbed out, "Yes, yes, yes" and fallen to kneel down with his boyfriend – his fiancée, Kurt had realised with a start – Blaine had kept talking against Kurt's shoulder, his neck, his cheek, his mouth. Kept apologising and pouring out everything – the self-loathing that now was tied permanently to his love for Kurt.

And Kurt had been powerless to stop it. Powerless to convince Blaine of what _he_ saw when he looked at him each and every day: a strong, brave man who was refusing to let himself become a victim of his own mistakes. Someone who knew exactly what was important in the world and would do absolutely anything to preserve those things.

But Kurt kept silent about all of that, letting Blaine's proposal hang in the room for a long moment before launching into the story of his own.

"I'd planned on proposing to him a year earlier," Kurt told the girls, smiling at their rapt expressions. "Back when we were in Ohio for Christmas. But Blaine had been sick that year, and we'd left early, so I'd kept the ring and hidden it in my Doc Martens. After that we'd found out about his... illness."

They still didn't say the name of it out loud, not to other people, only to each other late at night, when both of them needed a reminder of why things had to stop, why they couldn't give over completely to the passion and just take, take, take everything that they longed for from each other.

"And?" Rachel prompted, her eyes meeting Kurt's for the briefest of moments.

"And so I waited. We weren't really sure what was going to happen to us while we were still finding out the nature of Blaine's condition. But then things got better, and we went back to normal. Sort of. Then suddenly it was summer and all this time had passed and I started wondering if I was really ready to make that commitment to Blaine. I mean, it's so easy to think you love someone when everything in your life is going right. Not that we didn't fight and stuff before then-"

"Oh my God, I _remember_ the fights you two used to have!" Rachel interjected, before turning to Kurt's audience, "They would go at each other like crazy – I was genuinely worried that Kurt would ruin his voice for good sometimes."

"-but they were never really- never things that we would've broken up over. Obviously this thing with Blaine was different, so it took me – Blaine too, actually – it took _us_ a long time to get back to where we'd been.

"Anyway, by then it was summer and Dad, Finn and Carole came over to visit. Rachel and Patrick had moved out by then – the four of us lasted barely five months living together – so we let my family stay here in the apartment with Blaine and I. Carole helped out a lot with getting Blaine back on track. And she convinced him to stop making me see the counsellor he'd found me, because honestly I was just _sick_ of that woman by then."

"But what about the ring you'd gotten him?"

"Well, I'd told my Dad about it before, when he'd come over on his own just after we found out about Blaine. But one day during the summer, when the others were out, he asked me suddenly whether or not I still wanted to marry Blaine and I'd told him I did. Basically, he said that that's all there was to it, then. Life was never going to be easy with Blaine after he got sick, but since I loved him and he loved me, all it took was a good talk from my Dad for me to work out that nothing else mattered."

"So did you propose to him then?"

Kurt shook his head and said, "_No_. I started trying to have sex with him again then."

The girls laughed, although Kurt could tell that some were confused about what exactly counted as 'sex' in that scenario. He chose to ignore their perplexed expressions and continued on with his story.

"When my family went home, Blaine and I were both starting our last year at NYADA, because my course took a year longer than his, what with the performance aspect. And then one Sunday morning I woke up and he wasn't in bed with me, and I found him in the bathroom, staring at the box with ring I'd gotten him in it. He'd been looking for his runners to go for a jog and had accidentally knocked over my Docs and the box had fallen out. So I'd told him everything, about how almost a year ago I'd decided I wanted to marry him, but then finding out about his sickness had changed everything. He'd asked if I still wanted to marry him and I'd said I did. Not until after college, obviously, when we could afford a honeymoon and a proper service.

"Blaine doesn't like putting things off though, so he made me promise not to propose to him yet. He said it wouldn't make sense for us to be engaged for ages if we weren't getting married straight away, so I told him I'd wait for him to ask first. And then four months later he did ask me, and then a little while after that, after my first ever show on Broadway – chorus, and no lines, but still – I asked him. Luckily, he said yes."

The girls were all grinning widely by now, with the exception of Brittany who asked with a frown, "But how did you know he'd say yes? What if you'd agreed to marry him but he didn't agree to marry you?"

Kurt shrugged.

"It wouldn't have mattered, Brit. Like I said, Blaine does things in his own time now. It's... different, I guess, because he always feels like his body is a ticking clock. He doesn't like putting things off, because you never know when everything could suddenly go bad."

Quinn nodded, her grin fading as she said, "It was very brave of you, Kurt. It proves how much you love him that you'd agree to marry him, even knowing that he mightn't think he's allowed to say yes to you, because, well..."

"Because he mightn't be able to keep his vows," Tina finished for her. "That must be difficult for him to face. Knowing that, while you can promise him as close as you get to forever, he can't do the same."

Rachel, ever the arbitrator of these types of conversations, was watching Kurt carefully for his reaction, and he gained comfort from the knowledge that she was ready to leap in and protect him if she thought it was necessary. It surprised him how much he'd come to rely upon her at times like these. Starting with that moment of desperately wanting her to be there when he and Blaine had arrived home from the clinic, Kurt found that Rachel had become a symbol of stability, of the one part of his New York dream that had miraculously gone right.

"Blaine has promised to give Kurt a lifetime of happiness," Mercedes finally said. "And I think that's enough. Isn't that what we all really want?"

The girls nodded in solemn agreement, but a few sad looks were still shot Kurt's way, making him cringe into the couch. He felt Rachel's hand on his leg, just touching his knee lightly, as if anchoring him to her. Making sure he didn't draw back and disappear as he had taken to doing when things got difficult.

"Yes, yes," Rachel agreed brusquely, "Kurt's a lucky guy. Now who wants to get this party started for real and do some karaoke!"

The chorus of groans that greeted the statement were enough encouragement for Rachel to leap up from her place on the couch and start readying the microphones that were plugged into the TV. After exchanging affectionately pained glances, the others from the old Glee club joined in with the preparations, and soon everyone was fanned out around living room, forming a semi-circle around a space for whoever was singing to perform in.

Looking up from the midst of the girls, Rachel met Kurt's eyes and nodded towards the bathroom, mouthing, "Call him." Kurt needed no other incentive to excuse himself again and rush back to the shelter of the impeccably clean room, closing the door behind him to shut out the opening notes of _The Climb_.

Closing his eyes for a second and sighing into the silence, Kurt grabbed his phone and sat on the closed lid of the toilet as he tried Blaine's number again. He was surprised when it picked up on the fourth ring, and Patrick's voice spoke, the sound of an unfamiliar song and a noisy crowd echoing in the background.

"Hey, Kurt," Patrick greeted. "Rachel sent me a cease-and-desist with the phone thing, so I figured something was up. Do you want to talk to Blaine?"

"Yes, please," Kurt answered, glad that he didn't have to explain anything.

"Okay, just a sec."

Kurt listened to the sound of Patrick calling Blaine, and then a yelled reply and the sound of bodies being pushed past and a door opening and slamming shut as Blaine went outside, away from the noise of the bar.

"Kurt?"

"Blaine, hi."

Blaine's voice was tired but warm as he replied with a simple, "Hello," before both men fell silent, listening to one another's breathing.

"How are you?" Kurt finally asked, leaning forward to prop his elbow on his thigh, supporting his phone against his ear.

"I'm fine, Kurt, don't worry about me. What are you doing calling me anyway? This night is _supposed_ to be about you celebrating your last night as a free man. You can't even imagine how horrible married life will be. Having to spend every single day waking up next to me, drinking tea with me every morning, laughing at stupid in-jokes that no one else gets, calling me your husband- urgh. _Horrible_."

"We already do all that stuff," Kurt reminded Blaine with a laugh. "Except the husband thing. Although I can see that that's going to be a real pain."

"_So_ annoying," Blaine agreed teasingly.

"And then there's the business with my name..."

Blaine's tone was surprised as he asked, "What business with your name?"

"Well, I was thinking of changing it."

"To what?"

"Hummel-Anderson, maybe. But Anderson-Hummel sounds better. And means that I'm earlier in the alphabet," Kurt added as an after-thought.

On the other end of the line Blaine was silent, and as it stretched on Kurt began to get concerned.

"Blaine?" he asked. "It really isn't funny when you go quiet over the phone. Please talk, I'm worried."

Still nothing.

"I swear to God, Blaine, I _will_ call an ambulance if you don't answer me _right now-_"

"Woah, Kurt, calm down. I'm here, all right? I'm fine."

"Don't _do_ that, you idiot! You scared me."

"Kurt, I don't have a heart condition. I'm not about to randomly drop dead."

"Please, don't make death jokes, Blaine. They're not funny at all."

"I know, I'm sorry. I just- you surprised me. Still, after five years together, you come out and say stuff like _that_ and... God, Kurt. You want to change your name? Since when?"

Kurt felt himself blush and touched a nervous hand to his cheek, feeling the heat there as he replied, "Since about a minute ago, actually. The girls were just asking about our proposal stories and I was telling them, and then we were talking about you and your... special situation. And then Rachel suggested karaoke and told me I could come in here and talk to you and I just realised, literally right now, that I want to take your name. Or a bit of it, at least. Just something to- to remember you by."

"I'm right here, Kurt," Blaine assured him, but there was an edge to his voice, as if his teeth were gritted as he said, "I'm not going anywhere."

"I know," Kurt responded. "But still. I want- I _need_ you to be a part of me. Because I already know that you _are_ a part of me, but no one else knows it yet. People still think that somehow, something's going to make me stop loving you. They don't understand _how much_ I-"

"Kurt," Blaine interrupted, cutting off the tirade and repeating with transparent sincerity, "_I'm not going anywhere_."

"Never?" Kurt asked, knowing with awful certainty that Blaine couldn't and wouldn't lie to him.

"I can't promise you that. But I promise you my life – every single second of it will be spent trying to be enough for you. Trying to be the man you deserve."

"You're already more than the man I deserve, Blaine. Even if you don't see it."

"Can we agree to disagree on this? I don't want to fight with you now."

Kurt chuckled, shocking himself when a couple of tears fell from his eyes. He brushed them off his cheeks roughly, shaking his head to try and clear away all of the sadness, all of the worries. This wasn't the time for that. Maybe later, but not tonight. Tonight he was celebrating – not celebrating his last day of being single, as everyone seemed to think, but celebrating the eve of his being married. It was the beginning of the rest of his life. The threshold of the closest thing to forever that he and Blaine could get.

"No fighting," Kurt agreed. "Just love."

"Just love," Blaine echoed. "For as long as you'll have me."

"For as long as you'll let me have you," Kurt countered.

"I'd let you have me forever, if I could."

"Then let's try for that and work from there."

There was a tender smile in Blaine's voice as he replied, "Sounds perfect."

From the living room, Kurt could hear another song starting up, and wondered idly how many had played while he was talking, how long he'd been gone. No one had come to get him though, so he stayed where he was, humming the song that was playing in his head.

"Pretty, pretty please?" Blaine ventured, catching onto the tune and speaking the lyrics. "Don't you ever, ever feel like you're less than..."

"Less than perfect," Kurt finished. "If you ever, ever feel like you're nothing, you are perfect to me."

"How did I get you?" Blaine asked, probably rhetorically, as Kurt's words faded out.

"Luck," Kurt answered immediately. "And copious amounts of hair gel. And it probably helped that I have a thing for men in uniforms."

"Do you?" Blaine challenged, his tone cheeky.

"Well, I used to. Ever since this uniformed midget with personal space issues serenaded me when I was sixteen and desperately in need of a saviour."

"Damn, I hate guys like that," Blaine teased. "Never know when to keep their hands to themselves."

"Oh, I don't know," Kurt shot back with a grin that he wished Blaine could see, even though his boyfriend had insisted for years that he could hear the smile in Kurt's voice. "The handsy thing has grown on me, I'll admit."

"Really? I'll remember that next time I'm sitting next to you. See if I can sneak in a bit of hand-action under the table."

"The next time _that_ happens is going to be tomorrow, in case you forgot. Given that about 200 of our closest friends and family members are going to be there, I'd appreciate it if you kept your hands to yourself."

"You are no fun, Kurt Hummel."

"Kurt _Anderson_-Hummel, if I get my way."

"You always get your way," Blaine grumbled.

"Good. Then I can be sure there won't be any surprise hand-jobs under the table at our reception. Although if I give you a pointed look and disappear into a bathroom you are under orders to follow me immediately for some well-deserved time to get reacquainted."

"After spending barely twelve hours apart? I don't know if I want to marry you after all, Hummel. You seem to be getting very clingy."

"Blaine," Kurt said, his tone sweet enough to evoke a zombie-apocalypse brand of terror. "There are two things that you aren't allowed to joke about: death and cancelling our wedding. Already you have joked about both. Do you _actually_ want me to cancel this wedding?"

"No," Blaine replied quickly. "Definitely not. This wedding is the best thing that's ever happened to me. _You_ are the best thing that's ever happened to me. And cancelling the wedding and dying are both things that I am equally reluctant to do."

"Was that a joke?"

"No. No way. Never in a million years. I want to live forever as your husband. In a perfect world, that's what I spend my life doing, Kurt: _being yours._"

There was silence on the line as the words sunk in.

"You," Kurt finally began, glancing at the door when he heard footsteps outside, "are very sweet. When you try to be."

Blaine chuckled disarmingly, and Kurt could picture him swiping a hand through his hair, amber eyes fixed on the ground as he tried to evade the compliment. It was one of the many things that Kurt loved about his fiancée: the way sometimes he craved the spotlight yet other times he did everything he could to avoid it.

The way he looked straight at Kurt as they stood at the front of the church where Blaine played the organ on Sundays, caught up in a wedding that Kurt had never even known he wanted to have. The utterly clear, undiluted, untarnished _love_ that seemed to buzz in the space between them as a priest spoke well-chosen words from a book that only recently had Kurt begun to put some faith in. It was a love that couldn't be harmed – _they can't touch us, or what we have _– by all the evils of world, that didn't fade when things went wrong, when people made mistakes. It just... endured.

_Nothing's going to change_, Kurt and Blaine had promised each other. And, mostly, they'd been wrong. Everything had changed. But one thing hadn't. _This_. _Them_. The Kurt-and-Blaine who loved each other so passionately and quietly and deeply.

"I could try to tell you about the moment I fell in love with Blaine," Kurt said, not needing to read his vows off a piece of paper, because they were all _right there_, in the premature lines on Blaine's face, the shadow of stubble across his chin, the one tiny spot that he always, always missed, even years later. "But whatever I told you would be a lie. And that's not something that I'm comfortable doing in here."

The people crowded into the pews laughed as Kurt gestured to the church around them. Blaine squeezed Kurt's hand where it was grasped in his.

"I can't pin-point a specific time when I decided that Blaine was going to be a fixture in my future – it was something that kind of grew on me – but I can tell you the moment when I realised that I'd decided it.

"When we were teenagers, Blaine came to McKinley one day to sing me a song as a farewell from the Warblers, the Glee club I'd been with him in at Dalton. Except, when it came to actually saying goodbye, neither of us could do it, so I told him I never would. _I'm never saying goodbye to you_, I said, and from then on I've tried my best to keep that promise.

"But that's not when I realised it was true. That happened a few seconds later, when Blaine had gone back up the stairs and was leaving to go back to his school. I was with all my old friends, cheering and talking, when he looked back at me. But it wasn't like in the movies, where our eyes met over the crowded courtyard, because, like usual, we were doing everything out of sync. The moment when I looked up, he looked away, and all I saw was his head turning around as he walked off.

"That was the most romantic moment of my life. Not because it was something that we shared, but because, until now, only I knew about. That moment was proof that I was worth looking back at, that – even though I was still a second too late – I'd been thinking the same thing as him for that short time: that this was a guy worth turning back to. That he was the last thing I wanted to see before I continued on with my fabulous life."

Another quick bout of laughter sounded, but now Kurt had eyes and ears only for Blaine. Blaine filled his senses – filled his whole body, his whole world – so that everything and anything was Blaine, Blaine, Blaine.

Blaine's hand in his, holding him on Earth in a way that gravity never could. Blaine's smell surrounding him, surrounding them, because it was _their_ smell now: the smell of their house and their clothes and their bodies intertwined beneath sheets – the scent of their life together. Blaine's breathing loud and solid in his ears, so sure and definite and real. Breaths gusting and a heartbeat thumping and the tiny, clicking noise of Blaine swallowing – the minute things that were the bricks in the walls of Kurt's world.

So now, without having to close his eyes or adjust one single thing, Kurt spoke only to Blaine, returning them for an indefinite moment to that blissful place where nothing existed but the two of them.

"Blaine," he began, the name a sigh and a smile and a promise, "I know that some people – a lot of people – didn't think we could make it this far. They think we're too young or too broken or too _sick_ to be able to live the lives we deserve. But they don't understand anything. It's not _lives_ anymore, Blaine, it never has been. It's a life. One _life_. For us to share. It always has been.

"And I don't care if, one day, maybe soon and maybe not for decades yet, you turn away again, not expecting, not knowing that I'll look back too. Because I always will, Blaine. Even if I'm just a little bit too late for you to notice.

"No matter what, I'll always look back to you, always love you, always know that I'm the one you're thinking of whenever you turn away. And vice versa. I am never _not_ thinking about you. Never regretting anything that has happened, because somehow all of it has led to here and now. To you and me. For good. Forever."

Kurt nodded at the last word in stubborn conviction. _This_ was how he was spending the rest of his life, and damn it if anyone tried to tell him otherwise.

More words were spoken, passages read and then finally, _finally_ the service was coming to an end. Kurt knew he'd gone on for too long, taken too much time to somehow try and explain it all. It was impossible, really, attempting to make sense of it. No wonder no one understood how he felt about Blaine, no wonder everyone questioned it: there was simply no way to explain to someone _how_ you loved them. That it was in the big, permanent, unchanging, traditional and fixed and certain way that people rarely seemed to love anymore.

But somehow, Blaine managed it, choking out a heartfelt, "I love you," as he leant in to capture Kurt's lips, kissing him softly and beautifully and as if they didn't have Death constantly staring down on them. As if nothing could hurt this single, perfect moment that they'd stolen from a world that did everything it could to break them.

"Hello," Kurt murmured when he and Blaine separated, still entwined so closely and so intimately that there was nothing else they could be sure of existing outside of each other.

Because, if anything, hello was the opposite of goodbye. It was a greeting, a beginning, the start of an incredible story. And perhaps theirs hadn't started with that – had, in fact, from the very beginning, been imperfect and out of sync, defined by interruptions, by unknown motives and strange tricks of fate. Perhaps hello was too obvious, too simple, too easy a way to start a story such as theirs.

"Hello, yourself," Blaine whispered back, his amber eyes dancing, his fingers squeezing Kurt's once more.

And it was finally the beginning they deserved. The _story _they deserved. The one that was perfect and happy and free from people who hated and viruses that attacked and friends and family that couldn't handle who and what and how they were.

It was also a lie. A blissful illusion. A temporary escape from the cruel clutches of reality.

But, for the moment, for the day, they ignored that. As they rode off into the sunset in a clichéd horse-drawn carriage, Kurt and Blaine let themselves forget about the 'ever after' that they weren't allowed to have. Instead, they focussed on the 'happy', which they planned to hold onto until every ounce of strength had drained from their bodies. Until they could no longer fight off the inevitable: the slow, silent, deadly truth that hung over them, a shadowy backdrop to their fairytale future.

The reality that, one day, Kurt _would_ have to say goodbye.

_But not today._


	7. And One Time He Did

**A/N: In all the drafts this was a 100-word drabble. And then I got to posting it and was just doing and final edit and, well... 900 words later I was finally done 'editing'.**

**Also I might actually put a tearjerker warning on this, because I was crying like a baby as I wrote it.**

**Also also, I wrote a companion piece for this earlier today, called RememberForget, which can be found here or on tumblr. Feel free to go check that out!**

* * *

><p><strong><em><span>5 Times Kurt Didn't Say Goodbye<span>_**

**_... And One Time He Did_**

* * *

><p>-1-<p>

_Too soon_

...

Kurt tried to keep his promise and never say goodbye to Blaine. He cried out other words – curses, bargains, pleas – but none that held the same sense of finality.

Even years later, when he found a man who was _good_ for him and _right_ for him and who utterly _adored_ him, Kurt still didn't let go. _Never, never_, _never_, he told himself.

So he lost another perfect, loving boy to the cruel, cruel world.

And he finally started thinking, _not yet, not yet, not yet._

Until, one day, he looked at the photos, the memories, the _life_ that wasn't there anymore, and realised with a start that it was time. He packed it all up into boxes – a cardboard one to go into storage, a wooden one to keep on the mantle, and steel safe to lock it all away in his mind – and taped closed the lids and threw away the keys and that was that.

It was strange how _full_ the apartment still seemed without Blaine's belongings, and as he stared at the new empty spaces, Kurt came to realise that he'd been packing things away for years without even noticing. Without Blaine to keep it all there, to cement his presence in the world, all evidence of it had been fading away bit-by-bit. Until now, there was almost nothing left.

"Are you okay, Dad?" the girl asked. The sweet, beautiful, wonderful girl that Kurt had adopted in a quest of stubborn insanity, which he'd come to realise had probably saved his life, given him hope when he'd felt like he had nothing else left. Given him something to fight for, someone to love and someone to need.

"Yes," he answered, and he wasn't lying. Not to her. Never to her.

"Where's your wedding photo gone?" she asked with a frown.

Kurt nodded to the box on the mantle by the mirror, but neither of them moved to approach it, to open it.

Instead his daughter fixed him with a stare, one that reminded him of his father and his mother and of everything that had once been constant and true and that he'd lost (_Blaine Blaine Blaine_), and said, "Are you ever going to look at it again?"

"I don't know," he replied.

She kept watching him with those eyes, ones that knew everything he did, every time he broke just a little more and every time he fixed himself again.

Ones that knew he still called Blaine's cell number just to talk, to leave a message that would never be heard on a phone that was now buried in the bottom of a cardboard box. Ones that watched as he typed out emails to an account that no one knew the password to, and sent them away into cyberspace because of _what if_ and _just in case_ and _maybe_. Ones that had seen him crying over shirts and toothbrushes and cutlery and cups of coffee and packets of tea and teddy bears and noises and expressions and feelings and features that he recognised but couldn't quite place and questions that had never been answered and- and _absolutely everything_ because he had _lived_ a _life_ with Blaine and Blaine was everywhere and everything.

Kurt waited for her to open her mouth, to tell him what to do. But she didn't.

She wasn't his mother or his father or his Blaine. She was his child. And, for every desperate part of him that needed her, a million times as many parts of her needed him.

Needed him to be strong and safe and brave. Needed him to raise her, to teach her, to love her unfalteringly. Needed the _courage_ that someone had once believed he had, that someone had dedicated his life to extracting, to proving, to worshipping, to falling more and more in love with every moment of every day.

"He would've loved you," Kurt said, noticing as the girl's expression fell.

Because, to her, the words were worthless. It was hypothetical love, something intangible, not real or useful or helpful. All it did was sap away her spirit, remind her of what was missing, of all the things she'd never be and never have.

It was all part of the past – a past that certainly wasn't her's and wasn't really even Kurt's anymore. Back then, they'd been KurtandBlaine: one entity, one union, one life. For a while he'd been JustKurt – someone who he hadn't been since he was sixteen and who he feared and hated and knew couldn't last, couldn't cope. But now he had a real chance to be KurtandGirl, FatherandDaughter, Family.

_Family_.

Kurt took a step away from the mantle and towards the girl.

"More importantly, though," he said, clearing his throat of the sobs that tried to build up, "_I _love you. Here and now and forever. No matter what."

And he pulled her into his arms and held her close and tight and warm. He buried his head in her shoulder and took in her smell and her feel and how everything was so completely different to before.

"I'll never stop loving you," he promised her. And he knew that, this time, it was a promise he would keep.

Because, that night, with his daughter by his side, he sent one last email, one last text, before deleting the final remnants of Blaine from his life. A simple little message that it had taken him too much pain, too much time, too much _everything_ to finally be able to send:

_I love you, Blaine. __Always._

_Goodbye,  
>Kurt<em>

He felt powerful, numb, sad, grateful, angry, brave, frustrated,_ somuchallatonce_ as he pressed 'send', and then it suddenly disappeared and all that was left was freedom.

Finally it was over.

Finally, he could stop searching – stop looking for a way out of his grief, a way around his pain, a mysterious place in his mind or in the world in which everything was still all right. An elusive _somewhere_ that once, long ago, Blaine had sung to him of finding, of going to, but that somehow they'd never quite reached.

And thus, with a shudder and a creak – slowly, impossibly, inevitably – Kurt Anderson-Hummel's life went on.


End file.
